Zynga has made a bold decision. The company is re-designing its website in an effort to end its reliance on Facebook and set itself up as a standalone gaming platform. Is this the start of a tide-turning trend that could rock the social network?

Zynga, the company behind such monster social games as FarmVille, is distancing itself from Facebook, almost completely ending a tight relationship that’s seen both make enormous profit.

Zynga wants its gamers to ween themselves off of social networks and do their gaming across a variety of devices and platforms, not least of all its own website. “It will help users keep their Facebook profiles separate from their gaming habits while bringing Zynga closer to users,” says the company’s GM Manuel Bronstein.

“If they want to play on Facebook, if they play on mobile, if they play on the web, I want them to be connected to Zynga and it cannot be constrained to one single destination,” he adds.

Zynga’s decision to untangle itself from Facebook could have dangerous ramifications for the social network. For a start, Zynga’s looking to mop up games from other companies in its effort to create a one-stop shop for social gaming. If this works, it could suck the life out of Facebook’s gaming market.

As it stands, Facebook takes 30 per cent of money generated from each game. Zynga’s initial plans are for gamers to still make purchases using Facebook Credits, but if that changes it could put a serious dent in one of Facebook’s biggest revenue streams.